Seven community-minded Ucluelet Secondary grads were awarded seven giant cheques on June 18 at the Ucluelet Secondary School (USS).
Facilitated by the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust (CBT), program coordinator Jason Sam said the 2026 education awards committee received a record number of 32 applicants for five scholarships. A total of $114,000 was handed out for post-secondary.
“All these recipients have been highly noted for their contributions for school and community,” said Sam.
“We find no better way to serve our community than to uplift and empower our youth to seek out their opportunities for higher education and to pursue their life goals,” he said.
This year, the $22,000 Central Region nuučaan̓uł Education Award was shared between Ahousaht First Nation’s Zakariyah Thomas and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s Marissa Tom-Charlie.
“Honestly, the selection committee could not choose, so in order to avoid the stress, they evenly split it,” said Sam.
Thomas will apply her $11,000 towards pursuing a sports and recreation management degree at Vancouver Island University (VIU).
“I feel really happy to get this scholarship. I’m a little rez girl that made it out of the rez. It means so much to me that my family is here by my side. Thank you to my family for pushing me to succeed and do better things in life,” said Thomas.
Her mom, Freida Thomas, says the money will help in so many ways.
“As a single mom, I raised my children all on my own. This will help tremendously with her books and such. I was literally in tears when she showed me the envelop,” said Freida.
Thomas, a dedicated Ahousaht basketball player, says she will continue to play the sport while at VIU.
Tom-Charlie is also headed to VIU to study criminology. She was inspired to learn more about the Canadian justice system after studying law in Grade 12 with USS teacher Mr. Nixon.
“He was my favourite teacher. He did my reference letters,” said Tom-Charlie.
“This award means a lot for me. I hadn’t planned on going to school in the fall, I made that decision to go recently. This takes off a lot of stress,” she said.
Originally from Port Alberni, Tom-Charlie moved to the west coast in Grade 10 and lives with her grandparents Deb Masso and Francesca Palazzolo.
“We are so proud of her. She gets up early every single morning. She’s an early bird. She’s so committed to her education, and she is only going further,” said Masso.
Masso works in Tla-o-qui-aht’s language department and teaches weekly Nuu-chah-nulth language classes. She translated two phrases from Barkley dialect and central Nuu-chah-nulth dialect for a grad banner: ‘you’ve all done something big’ and ‘always be kind-hearted’.
“There is such power in words, especially Nuu-chah-nulth words. All our words are rooted in the land, in the sky, in the stars, in everything, that’s why it’s so beautiful and so powerful,” said Masso.
Tofino surfer Clay Chiovitti received Tourism Tofino’s $10,000 scholarship, which he will put towards a kinesiology degree.
Eli Morgan and Calla Hurwitz evenly split the CBT’s $22,000 Education Award. Morgan is heading to University of Victoria (UVic) to study engineering and Hurwitz is off to UVic as well to study kinesiology.
The Pacific Rim Foundation Dick Close Scholarship doubled down this year, bestowing two recipients with life-changing sums of money. Phoebe Forde received $20,000, which will support her journey at UVic as she studies physics. Hugh Clouthier, who likely had the biggest smile at the end of the day, was named the recipient of a $40,000 Pacific Rim Foundation Dick Close Scholarship. Clouthier plans to study kinesiology at UVic.
